The Side of the Angels

With a joyous rebel whoop, bestselling author Blair ( A World of Difference ) unleashes an outstanding cast of feisty, memorable and believably flawed women. Kate Ballard, a brilliant child peppered with New England grit, is appalled when her highly sexed mother, Sydney, runs off with her own first cousin, Royal Benedict. Kate and her fusty, academic father are snubbed by the powerful southern Benedict clan until granddame Polly swoops down to meet her estranged daughter's child. So begins a lifelong struggle between two exquisitely matched, opinionated women. Like all of those whom Kate loves, from her insecure movie-idol husband , Win , to her scheming best friend Rebecca, Polly tries to steer Kate in directions she is loathe to go. Rather than churn up the vapid froth that keeps so many commercial novels afloat, Blair solidly builds this one around the old-fashioned South Carolina political machine Polly runs, with ballast from Kate's scholarly treatise on cross-cultural repression of women. Her injections of wit and wicked spice rarely pall, despite some deep dips into melodrama. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selections. (June)